


Decent Godless People

by Syrinx



Series: Chimerical [6]
Category: Thoroughbred
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-23
Updated: 2009-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-07 07:28:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrinx/pseuds/Syrinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fervid: heated or vehement in spirit, enthusiasm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Decent Godless People

Nothing about this is romantic. This is what she determines the moment she reaches for him and finds her back pressed harshly against the grimy tack room wall. Dust and dirt drift in the air, glint in the florescent lights, and she breathes it in as he watches her from so many inches away.

“What the fuck, Ashleigh?”

It’s a fair question. He’s confused, but then so is she. The difference is that she is the instigator, and he is the one pressing her against a wall. There are shadows in his eyes. She doesn’t want to know what lurk in hers.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she says, and then halfway smiles at the expression that crosses his face. He leans a little harder on her wrists, keeping her pinned there.

“Would it upset you if I told you I didn’t really care?”

She shrugs, flexes her fingers. “I thought it might be useful information for later.”

“That’s great,” he says. “I feel enlightened.”

“Smart ass,” she mutters.

“Sometimes it’s nice to be the consistent one.”

She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t really think she’s capable anymore. The whole summer has been sideways glances and quiet flushes, a torturous succession of increasingly problematic emotions that reached a fever pitch days ago. It is hot and humid and Ashleigh is dirty and exhausted and far past the point of writing this off.

It is ludicrous.

But she doesn’t really care. The year has been a lesson in frustration, and at the center of it all is her need to do something all the way or not do it at all. It is about belief, and even now she’s still sure she’s done the right thing. She has spent her summer on a moderately talented horse she dumped her boyfriend for, which she doesn’t tell him now because she’s sure he’ll just laugh in her face because this is so like her. Goddess is not the horse she believed she had, but it doesn’t stop her from her devotion.

She’s the idealist, and he’s her perfect opposition. She realizes the irony in her situation perfectly. Even now.

He doesn’t ask another question, despite the fact that she didn’t really answer his first one. She doesn’t have an answer for him, just a sudden effort to clear the path of guilt. It has the desired effect, and he shifts into her, those inches between them disappearing as her heart beats out a frenzied rhythm.

He lets go of her wrists, and she’s happy for that. There is no time for her to wonder what to do with her hands, because he’s scooping her away from the wall with one arm around her waist. Her hands go to his shoulders, his neck, arms wrap around him as she darts her tongue out to taste her lips.

It is not what she envisioned when he kisses her, but somehow everything she’d thought before is immediately discarded as fanciful idiocy in comparison to this. Her back hits the wall again, and she gasps against his mouth, letting him in almost by accident. Being who he is, he takes the invitation without thought. Ashleigh lets him, drags her hands down to his chest and pulls him closer with her fingers clenched on the cotton of his shirt.

Something in her rises when he fists a hand in her hair, tugging her head back. Strands get caught in the grains of the plain wood wall, and the urge to shove at him sparks. She pushes, and he breaks the kiss with a smirk, like he expected this. But she follows his mouth, kisses him and crowds him back against the closed door.

At least he’s a little surprised, if the grunt she gets out of him when they meet the wood is any indication. She has to practically climb up him to meet his mouth, and he helps her slide up his body with his hands on her thighs. This is how she’s transported from aggressor to supplicant, when he turns to rest her against the first in a line of saddles, a stirrup iron digging uncomfortably into her hip.

“Brad,” she says against his jaw as he moves down her neck, his hands gathering the material of her dirty tank at the small of her back, pushing it up so his fingers can trace along her spine. She shivers, thrusting up so she can run her lips back to his mouth. Her voice is all too breathy when she says, “Please.”

Instead he stops, which is not what she wants at all. He’s between her legs, and her jeans are heavy and gross on her skin, and she’s starting to really wonder what this is going to be like when he has to go insert reality into her plan.

“We can’t do this here,” he says, his body countering his words when he just presses closer. She feels that all too well, and instead of snapping and bolting she is only hazy and perturbed that he’s interrupting this with hesitation and talking.

“Why?”

He pauses, like he’s forgotten his reasons for a moment. He runs the pad of his thumb across her collarbone, pushing aside the fabric of the tank and strap of her bra. She tightens her legs around him, just for a fleeting second, and that seems to wake him up.

“Because,” he drops his hands to her thighs, and then seems to think better of it and replaces them on the saddle on either side of her. “This is the tack room, and I’ve been working all day. My daily routine doesn’t exactly require I walk around with condoms. Fuck, Ash, I don’t even have my wallet right now.”

It is a slow dawning realization. When it hits her, she shuts her eyes hard. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” he says with a breath. She can feel it on her neck, because he’s leaning into her again. He pulls her off the saddle, nearly taking it with her to the floor.

“What do we do?” she asks, taking a deep breath. She can do this. She can take control. “Where do we go?”

He looks at her oddly, as if he really hadn’t expected that.

“The house,” he says simply. She nods.

“Where are your parents?”

He winces. “Sleeping.”

“Let’s go.”

“What?”

“Did you not hear me?” She takes his hand and heads for the door.

“Fuck.”

She opens the door and leads him out into the dim aisle. “That’s the idea.”

“Who the hell are you tonight?” he asks her, walking with her out into the hot air. The locusts scream in the trees. She doesn’t answer, thinking that perhaps she doesn’t really know.

His room is also not what she expected. It’s in the back of the house, overlooking the business end of the farm, which, if she thinks about it, is very like him. Large, cluttered, a boy’s room. She’s only ever seen Mike’s, and she supposes this one shares much of the same components. The only difference is that Brad’s bed is made. She has a suspicion that this is not of his doing. She would be correct.

The best thing about the process of getting in the house is that it’s easy. There is a separate entrance in the back of the mansion, and the stairs lead straight up to his room. Thus she is saved some measure of awkwardness. Right now, she’s just focused on being here at all.

He doesn’t bother with giving her a grand tour, and she doesn’t want one. He just shuts the door and puts an arm around her, hand on her abdomen, mouth pressing a kiss to the nape of her neck. A shiver races through her, and his fingers find her skin where her tank top rides up, offering an open invitation: up or down. She decides to take matters into her own hands and turns around, tugging the hem up and over her head. The clothing drops to her feet and he pushes her back until her legs meet the edge of the bed. They tumble down.

She’s ever only done this once, but her body knows what to do. Most of it is act and react, but she feels that pull to control and before she knows it she’s yanking at his shirt. He helps her, sitting back to tear it off while her hands can’t seem to help themselves and run from his chest to the button of her jeans.

Their paddock boots are an annoyance. Laces and zips are undone with impatience, and they are left to thud in a muddy mess on the floor at the foot of the bed. She wiggles out of her jeans, and he helps, peeling the denim off her legs so he can run his hands over her smooth skin.

She’s grinning, because no matter what this grappling with clothing is weirdly amusing. It’s not until the clothing is gone entirely, cast off somewhere, that she is faced with the seriousness of this. Because this is them, and no matter what they say it is always serious.

“Ash,” he says, lazily dragging a hand from her neck to her breasts, thumb taking a track over one nipple until she’s sure she’s going to go mad. She arches, hooking one leg around him and kissing away whatever words he has left.

The fact of the matter is this: she is not the girl he knew, and this is a summer in which she’s grown up. She is someone else, a girl who can want and not compromise, bend and still believe. Knowing him, he probably likes it. Of course he does. His fingers on the inside of her thighs are a testament.

Her breathing goes shallow when he strokes her, his fingers brushing slick and wet. He’s gentle about it, not really knowing, and she has avoided the topic so neatly that she picks up the pace. He understands, but she can’t help the trembling as his fingertips glide into her own fluidity.

It’s a rhythm. In, out, again, again. His mouth is on her neck and she’s so embarrassingly attuned to everything and lost at the same time, hips rising in accordance to his fingers. He coaxes her toward the fall, lips on hers, sharing breath, one hand on her waist and the other delving ever deeper. She slides into it, gasping and letting her eyes fall shut.

He nuzzles against her collarbone, nipping at her lightly as he gently pulls back his fingers. Somehow, she remembers that she has hands and functional limbs with which to move them, and slides them to his arms, his chest, across his skin to him, hard and heavy across her palm.

Condoms may be in the room, but she’s somewhat happy to note that it’s been at least a little while. It takes some digging in a bedside drawer to find them. She’s impatient, but he rips the packet open with his teeth, and when he’s there against her, she is dizzy with the knowledge that this is happening. He’s slipping into her and it is slow and weighty and she knows exactly why.

Their hips roll, little shocks to clenching muscle. His fingers slide over her skin while her bitten down nails make half-moon impressions on his shoulders. She keeps her eyes open, pulls a leg up to rest against his hip, and traces a thumb over the frown between his eyebrows. His eyes blink open, and he smiles, sliding in again.

She sighs, dazed, shifts slightly and tightens around him. He kisses her, soft and demanding in a way that only they can be. He says her name against her lips, and she opens to him, meeting him, heat sliding into her belly until pressure begins to spiral out.

A noise slides from this throat, and he shoves up on one hand, pushes deep, a hand going to her knee. His hands are rough—as are hers—and she heaves up, the rhythm cresting and breaking, coming apart. It feels like she is full of rippling pleasure, lapping against him and trembling, beckoning him over until he tips, letting her pull him under.

They are sweat and sighs, lazy to remove themselves now that they’re still. Finally he gathers her against him and rolls them onto their sides, exposing her back to the cool air of the house. He runs a hand down her spine, her still hot skin, and slides out of her.

She closes her eyes while he gets rid of the condom, and she tells herself that she will not jump up and run. Neither will she stay. Somehow she has to find a balance to the end of what she started, and she finds that it’s nearly impossible; especially when he draws one of the sheets they’ve discarded over her, bunches it against her back and draws her close.

She mumbles words against his chest. “I can’t stay.”

“Figured,” he says.

Well, so much for that, she thinks. She is still filled with the inclination to stretch, press herself to him, let her eyes drift closed in a resemblance of normalcy. It is what she won’t have, not with him, and not tonight. She imagines she’s not missing anything, not really. And that is the thought that roves in her head when she eases out of his grasp. He’s sleeping, or so she wants to think. Her muscles ache when she stands, unused to what he’s done to her, and pads around the room in search of her things.

When she’s hastily dressed, paddock boots zipped, tangled hair finger combed, she doesn’t make promises to herself. He asked none of her, so she’ll keep it that way. No promises, because she’s sure they couldn’t keep one. So she slips out the door.

The heat of the night hasn’t changed, but she finds herself smiling at her feet as she walks toward home.


End file.
